3rd year MACP student Jamelyn Keatts reflects on her particiaption in the third annual MHGS Artist Residency.

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” – Anne Lamott

There is something sacred about creating. It is a birthing process. It’s mysterious. It’s exhausting, agonizing, and surprising. The creative process is also a self-exploration. One could describe it as the deeply buried unimaginable making its way to the surface, in order to finding its unique expression. I love that this lesson continues to show up regardless of if I am in class, with clients, or as I spend a week in an artistic community– that which is within finds its way to expression. This lesson beckons me to listen to and trust what is deep within. Perhaps this trust is what it means to have hope in the mysterious darkness. Or, perhaps it is more like grace, as I am surprised by the beauty and kindness that emerges from that darkness. I am not entirely sure, but I do think there is something of what it means to co-create with God. For me, co-creating means trusting in God’s mysterious presence within me enough to follow its lead, trusting that what comes out doesn’t need to be what others think it needs to be – it is what it is. It is an offering, a gift.

Continue Reading MHGS Artist Residency: Space to Create

Artemis, Tina Guldhammer Frei

Sacred Space is the realm of Student Leadership that tends to the artistic and ordinary spaces of Mars Hill Graduate School in hopes of opening up space for our community to rest, wrestle, and play. A practical manifestation of this work is found in the art galleries on the second and third floors, which highlight the work of local artists as well as alumni and current students. Our second floor gallery currently features the work of Tina Frei in a collection entitled Re-Placing Nature: Visual Art And the Recovery of Sacred Space.

Tina is a native of eastern Washington. She grew up in the Walla Walla valley, a landscape that has greatly influenced her artistic vision. Frei recently completed a Masters in Theology and the Arts at Fuller Theological Seminary. This collection is a part of her Masters Thesis project, which examined the loss of sacred natural space in Western culture.

Sacred Space had a chance to ask Tina about her artistic process and her current show at MHGS:

Sacred Space: How do you begin and how do you know when it is done?

Continue Reading The Holy Northwest: Sacred Space Interviews Local Artist Tina Guldhammer Frei